Egg prices are expected to continue to drop after the annual Easter spike and as more and more chicks grow up into adult laying hens.
Dallas-Fort Worth area shoppers could find a dozen eggs priced between $2.50 to $2.99 at most area grocers this week. That’s still about 40% higher than before the avian flu, but a bigger improvement from the peak price in January of almost $5.
The hen supply is recovering from the deadly avian flu that forced U.S. farmers to kill more than 40 million egg-laying hens last year.
The U.S. egg market is having one of those “which comes first, the chicken or the egg” moments, said Texas A&M agriculture economist David Anderson.
Egg producers are adding chickens as fast as they can and that’s dependent on chickens laying more eggs to hatch into more chicks to produce more eggs, he said.
It takes six months for chicks to become fully grown and begin producing eggs.
Wild birds, which were the source of the avian flu, are migrating north again.
“By midsummer, we’ll know if the virus has run its course,” Anderson said.
The supply of hens laying eggs to be hatched and hens producing eggs to be eaten are both up from a year ago, Anderson said. “But we’re still behind.”
The supply of hens laying table eggs as of March 1 was 313 million, or the most since a year ago when there were 325 million laying hens.
Hens that are laying eggs for hatching numbered 4 million up slightly from 3.7 million a year ago, he said. “That suggests we are ramping up to produce more.”
Eggs were an average of $1.79 a dozen in December 2021, a couple of months before the avian flu caused 43 million laying hens to be euthanized. Eggs were big contributors to inflation last year as Dallas-Fort Worth grocery prices increased more than 14%, one of the highest for metro areas tracked by government economists.
At that price, eggs were a cheap source of protein for consumers, Anderson said. “As we’ve had people struggle on a budget, higher egg prices are a bigger hardship on much of the population and puts food banks in a bind.”
While specialty eggs are more expensive and some consumers are willing to pay higher prices, Anderson believes most Americans want lower-priced eggs.
Prices for cage-free, vegetarian-fed, organic and omega-3 eggs, which are produced by hens fed a diet containing flaxseed, are about twice as expensive as USDA Grade A eggs.
